Why use R as GIS?

• Open source: No cost
• Performance: R is stable and blazingly fast
• Reproducibility: code can be shared and the results repeated
• Transparency: code can be checked forensically and any errors spotted
• Automation: spatial analyses and data visualisations can be run and re-run with new and existing data sets
• Integrated with ArcGIS: ArcGIS Bridge is an R package which allows ArcGIS and R to dynamically access data
• and….

Support network

• Books: e.g. Brunsdon & Comber (2015)
• Online tutorials: e.g. spatial.ly; Creating-maps-in-R
• Online forums: e.g. StackOverflow; GIS.StackExchange
• and cheatsheets

Static maps

Source: James Cheshire (CASA, UCL), http://spatial.ly/2012/02/great-maps-ggplot2/

Interactive maps

Shiny apps

Source: Kyle Walker (Texas Christian University), https://walkerke.shinyapps.io/neighborhood_diversity/